Before composer Ludwig van Beethoven died on March 27, 1827, it was his wish that his ailments be studied and shared so “as far as possible at least the world will be reconciled to me after my death.”
Now, researchers have taken steps to partially honor that request by analyzing Beethoven’s DNA from preserved locks of his hair and sequencing the composer’s genome for the first time.
A portrait of Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler was completed in 1820. Credit: Beethoven-Haus Bonn
“Our primary goal was to shed light on Beethoven’s health problems, which famously include progressive hearing loss, beginning in his mid- to late-20s and eventually leading to him being functionally deaf by 1818,” said study coauthor Johannes Krause, a professor at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, in a statement.
The five hair samples helped scientists discover insights about family…
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